For many centuries man has attempted to harness the force of wind for operating countless mechanisms such as grain crushing mills, water pumps, and more recently electrical generators. With this object in mind, diverse windmill designs have been developed in the past, all limited in operational capability within a relatively narrow range of wind velocity. In order to widen the range of usable wind velocity, a means must be devised either for accelerating the velocity of the air flow acting on the impellers of the power generating device at low wind velocities, or for reducing the velocity of the air flow past the impeller blades, or alternatively throttling the air flow, at high wind velocities. Alternatively, variable pitch impeller blades may be used with appropriate governor systems for varying the pitch as a function of wind velocity to maintain the angular velocity of the output shaft substantially constant.
In addition, wind actuating devices must be able to orient themselves in the average wind direction. Small, light wind-actuated devices may be made self-orienting by being rotatably supported around a vertical axis and by being provided with an appropriate wind-orienting vane. More powerful and heavy devices require appropriate wind orientation means capable of orienting the axis of the wind-actuated device generally along the axis of the direction of prevailing wind, without hunting or too much delay.
The present invention provides a reaction-type turbine of a novel design which, although relatively light in construction, is capable of producing considerable output power when constructed at a large scale, which is automatically oriented in alignment with the average direction of the prevailing wind, and which provides, at its output shaft, a constant angular velocity.